I have had writers block for the last three weeks, yet I am not a writer. Which is no doubt the whole of the problem. I can do ok with pictures on demand. Not so with pen and paper. Surely it isn’t that I don’t have much to tell you. I have too much to tell you, yet i need to be brief. I will get right to the point.

For those of you who have been readers here for awhile, you probably figured out a long time ago that this is a pretty humble operation here at Burn. While we are in popular terms a “wildly successful new brand” , we make no money and our staff is still an all voluntary army. Now mind you we are not even trying to make money. Yea invest in us! Smiling. Seriously, all of us value independence and freedom more than money. So we are not looking for bosses. Yet we are looking for support. Sure, uh huh, right dude, who gets money without a boss?

In fact we are ninjalike action heroes because we have generated some income from thoughtful donors to pay for our $15,000 Burn/Emerging Photographer Fund grant with funds donated through the not for profit Magnum Foundation. Subscription donations help to pay photographers for work published here. These are donors who simply believe in what we are doing.

Yet indeed, we are scrambling to make things work . There are two possible solutions. First , is to accept advertising. While I have zero aversion to advertising and have done ad photography, I think that for Burn right now we might just be able to survive without it and therefore have a really clean slate for just doing what we want to do and with a particular kind of unencumbered cred. This audience will basically make the decision for funding/donations based on the steps we are making.

So you may ask, what steps?

We want to make more of what we did in the last two weeks. Financially and psychologically supporting an emerging photographer like Egyptian Laura El Tantawy in Cairo and at the same time commissioning an exclusive for Burn essay by Paolo Pellegrin. Both photographers with unique styles and both looking at Cairo.

Both with equal pay, equal artistic control, and one time use only photo rights..

My stated initial goal of Burn was to combine the iconic with the emerging iconic. We have done it now with original photography from both and an exclusive here.

Next we go to firebrand Bruce Gilden who will be in Haiti during elections and a soon to be assigned young Haitian photographer to shoot a parallel story with Bruce. Followed by Alec Soth (shown above during my interview this week) and and an emerging photographer chosen by him. Our aesthetic interests will know no bounds and we will actively seek all individual styles of work.

Simultaneous with these projects sponsored by Burn and the readers of Burn will be a special corporate commission presented by BDwho sponsored James Nachtwey with his TB essay published on Burn in 2010. BD will now sponsor in Russia both Nachtwey and emerging star of Russian descent, Alisa Resnik. Frankly we would welcome this type of selected corporate sponsorship for any of the above projects as well. We feel we will get them , but I am willing to bet on it in the meantime with our readers support. BD was happy with Burn as a platform before, and have come back this time with additional support for a talented young photographer. So this is a model. Again all of this original work both by Nachtwey and by Resnik will be featured first here on Burn with a proper drum roll preceding.

All of the above projects highlight four new emerging photographers as well as the established legends.

I think we have taken a large step forward today without losing any of our identity. We just want to do things here on Burn, and upcoming in print magazine Burn 02, that are simply cool. Serious. Fun. Imaginative, and flat out informative as well. If it is not rewarding to do and we are not giving you something unique, then we fold the tent and go have a beer. Already in our short history I think we have helped a few young photographers, respected a few icons, and made a lot of new friends along the way.

Now one of the things I have noticed about creating space, funds, and a platform, is that while some receive , some feel left out. This is a conundrum with no real solution except I can say that I will do my best to pass things around. I cannot support everyone. My honest hope here is only to set an example so that others better equipped to do this sort of thing than I , will take on the responsibility and the effort. I am as accessible as I can be to photographers with ideas. At the same time, I do have my own photography and books to do, so there are times when I disappear into my own shooting as I am about to do in Rio. So all patience is appreciated.

We are struggling in the good old fashioned way. Times when real things happen for the right reasons. Feels like such a time.

Not sure what I think. Part of me interprets the “mask, alter, remove, add” edict as intended to ensure that the photograph is not manipulated (key elements removed, or added, like taking out a person). In my day job, I constantly have to balance the *intent* of rules and regulations with the actual implementation of them – sometimes, the “letter of the rule” is not in symmetry with the intent. But I suppose there is a slippery slope there as well.

I wonder…if Winter had taken a Holga, and shot the entire series with it on film, would there be the same type of uproar? If not, and if the hipstamatic app essentially just simulates digitally what you’d get with a Holga and film, then I fail to see the reason for the ruckus beyond the “rule interpretted for the rule’s sake”.

But hey, I’m not a PJ ethiscist, so obviously your actual mileage may vary.

BTW, I recommend the Jolicloud OS for netbooks for those folks using online apps. I’m currently posting from a friend’s laptop with a toasted hard drive using the Jolicloud live CD – so far. I’m pretty impressed :-)

It’s basically Ubuntu, optimized for the limited screen size of netbooks. You can install alongside Windows and choose to boot into Jolicloud.

Andrew.. to grow and step forward, you (me, just about everyone) need to get out of that comfort zone.. now mind you, I have no idea about where you are and where you want to go or if this workshop would be the right one, and it’s none of my business anyway, but if you don’t try you won’t know.. (that’s what I keep telling myself..)..

Ist image…..” One of the most famous pictures of Verdun: a French soldier hit during an attack. But the picture is not true. It is a still, taken from a French movie made in 1927-1928.”….. “The dramatic picture above was extracted from a movie frame,”
.
.
2nd image…….. staged image????..colours aka image treatment

Justin, I’ve not used either the Olympus or Nikon models you mention but would recommend you look at the system of each, particularly the lens range, if you intend to keep the camera and build a system.

yes i do not see the big deal either…photographers employ many things to get a “look”..i.e.i use med format and a normal lens and a wide aperture to have a shallow depth of field “look”…we all do something to give us either texture or a feeling that is indeed a tech choice..so i do not see the difference between employing an app on a cell phone and deciding on b&w film and a long lens or whatever…what is the difference?

Justin
sent you a note via the SLPS board – couldn’t find your email address. Let me know if you don’t get it.

Bob/Marcin
great idea on the assignments – kind of like back to the good old days, but evolved….I came to Road Trips just after all the assignments got handed out, or however that happened….

EVA
Very true, I know and want to push myself out of the comfort zone…my musing was actually a practical question – with only 15 spots available at such a large event, would I have a chance at all to even make it into the group… :)

i taught up in Toronto i guess year before last and i probably will be up there this spring as well….these workshops are pretty much the same as any other workshop with the exception that during that particular week you can choose mentors..of course you can always choose mentors anyway and you will only be with one…but, perhaps the advantage here is that there are group presentations by all of the classes and mentors , so you do see what the others are doing…these Contact/Magnum classes do not have the sort of down home style atmosphere i normally prefer, but has more of a photo fest ambiance …lots of people to meet and greet and learn from…all in all a good time and you do have the total advantage of the Bob Black hospitality….that alone is worth the price of admission!!

Not sure where I stand on this. We’re talking hard news photojournalism, not books or travel section. I guess people can use whatever their publication allows, but historically, they never sent pj’s out with Holga’s to cover the fire or the train wreck. Never encouraged overly artsy photos with radical dof effect either. Just visual equivalent of 5 w’s. But I guess since there’s little effort at objective reporting these days, it’s pretty much all opinion (usually poorly informed opinion if not outright purchased opinion), why hold the photographers to any kind of professional standards either?

well , yes you do make a good point in that sense…hmmmm, well Damon said that he thought that because the soldiers themselves were using cell phones to document their own lives that he thought that he would do same thing for THIS PARTICULAR COVERAGE was appropriate…i buy that…and by the way, PJ’s do control the “look” all the time with super long lenses, super wide lenses, camera remote traps, and all kinds of tech stuff to tell the “truth”…i guess this is one of those fine lines in the sand…sometimes i get frustrated with the righteousness of PJ’s on the one hand with stuff like this, but then they gang bang stories, leave when they are “over” for the news magazines etc etc…there are many lines one can cross, using a cell phone app seems like the least of them

Your patience to my mistakes is unbelievable.
Meeting, yes, yes, when I will be reach we can meet in london. cheep fly tikets for me. Maybe will be some occasion for you. Magnum meeting or so.
I would like to visit NY but nobody let me in.

of interest to some of you who may be in the stock photography biz…definitely something to think about….for all of you , EVERYTHING that you have as a photographer is your archive..all other chit chat on a variety of subjects pales by comparison…your archive is your legacy and perhaps your income….so one way or another you must focus on its care and feeding..

assuming you knew/know “def” was/is for “definition” in my parlance and his interpretation of “righteous”…and oh yes, double entendre, Bob Marley is definitely def too …the most def of anyone out there by far…

What do you do if your Doc tells you to start walking with one crutch because your foot won´t get any worse or any better at the moment?… I then keep on seeing Michael Kircher´s brilliant I-phone images on his blog and I complain to Eva I want a GF1 and she reminds me like all intelligent women (and BTW a highly talented photographer) I´ve got enough cameras… Well I go out at last for a walk with my camera.